Thomas Thistlewood

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Thomas Thistlewood (16 March 1721 – 30 November 1786) was an English-born planter, diarist, and serial rapist who spent the majority of his life in the British colony of Jamaica. Born in Tupholme, Lincolnshire, Thistlewood migrated to the western end of Jamaica where he worked as a plantation overseer before acquiring ownership of several slave plantations. During his time in Jamaica, Thistlewood kept a diary in which he chronicled his life. Eventually spanning over 14,000 pages, the diary detailed the brutal physical and sexual abuse of the slaves he held authority over, first as an overseer then as a plantation owner. In 1751, Thistlewood started working as an overseer on a sugar plantation called "Egypt"; within days, he started to rape the enslaved women on the plantation. According to his diary, over the course of his life he committed thousands of acts of rape on 138 enslaved women. He systematically raped enslaved girls and women; those that ran away were whipped and put in chains...

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